A database refers to an organized collection of data stored in a data storage system managed by a database management system (DBMS). The DBMS usually implements some type of synchronization to allow concurrent accesses to data in the database.
Synchronization may involve implementing a lock for each data in a database. If the locks are stored in high-speed memory, however, there may be scalability problems depending on the size of the database since high-speed memory tends to be small. On the other hand, storing the locks in a dedicated location in slow-access memory negatively impacts performance.
In a multi-generation database, data is organized according to one or more generations, or periods of time. One generation may end and another generation may begin at a checkpoint, at a restoration point, at the start of a particular operation, or at some other designated point in time.
Typically, there are multiple versions of each data, one for each generation. Each version is associated with a generation such that the newest version may be identified by searching for the version associated with the most current generation. Unfortunately, searching all the versions for the version with the most current generation is inefficient and makes synchronization difficult.
Systems and methods are needed to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings.